John Cowan wrote:
> Suppletion is often the result of sound-change making two
> forms collapse together so that a suppletive form is needed,
> though I don't know the specifics with "go, went" ("wend",
> the suppleting verb, has grown a new preterite "wended").
What about the modern suppletion for the present tense of
"have", "to have got"? There's no real soundchange involved
here -- it's just gained so much currency that it's beginning
(in many dialects, anyway) to replace the present tense form
(though of course the other forms remain as they are).
> Scots preserves (or borrows from Norse?) the preterite "gang".
I suspect it's "preserves". German still has "ging" as the simple
past form of "gehen" (cognate with Old English "g=E2n", IIRC).
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Tom Wier <[log in to unmask]>
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"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
Denn wo Begriffe fehlen,
Da stellt ein Wort zur rechten Zeit sich ein.
-- Mephistopheles, in Goethe's _Faust_
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